


An Eye For An Eye

by TheMetalReaper



Series: The Ghost and the Guard [11]
Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Domestic, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-06-27 08:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19787524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMetalReaper/pseuds/TheMetalReaper
Summary: "It'll be up in a month," I said. THREE MONTHS AGO. You're /so/ fucking welcome.Anyway, apologies aside, this is a bit of a change from the usual Ghost and the Guard stuff. This doesn't take place during an actual game (haven't played VR yet, waiting until it comes out on PS4!!), but instead a year or two after Sister Location. I had so much fun writing this, and I really hope you enjoy!!Now presenting: An Eye For An Eye: Chapter 1.





	1. Chapter 1

Peeling pastel purple paint coats the walls. It had once been a deep shade of almost-navy, but years of wear and tear that comes with age a five-person family had worn it down to its present state. The shelves pushed up against the walls are covered floor to ceiling with mechanical toys, all in various stages of repair. A battered and scratched oak table sits in the center of the room. Charlie sits at it, tooling with the front panel of the fifteen-something-year-old microwave. 

The weary floorboards outside the room creak in indignation as a pair of boots enter the doorway. His gloved fingers rap against the molding once, announcing his entrance. “Lee? You got a minute?” 

In the dim light of the room, Charlie can just barely make out the tall, inhumanly gaunt figure lingering in the doorway. “Yeah, what’s up?” She lets the wrench in her hand drop to the table with a resounding metallic clang.

The figure steps closer, and his face is illuminated a bit more. His nose has long since rotted away, leaving only an upside-down heart in the center of his face, and his face is lined with strongly protruding cheekbones. Two deep depressions are all that remain of his eyes. Michael thumps into the seat across from her, pushing away the innards of the microwave Charlie had been tinkering with. Tugging back the sleeve of his trench coat, he revealed a deep cut across the length of his lower arm from his wrist to his inner elbow. Dark mauve skin frames the wound, peeling away in cracked, wrinkled sheets. 

“Jeez, Mike, what’d you do to yourself?” Charlie asks quietly, fingers pirouetting across the rusting metal. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

A small smile flickers across Michael’s face. Though he’d never admit it, he does appreciate her concern. “It’s just rotting, Lee. Like always. And it doesn’t hurt anymore, I promise.”

The flash of her eyes reveals that Charlie doesn’t exactly believe him. “So, besides the gigantic gaping wound, what’s wrong?”

“Well… my pinkie finger is stuck, jammed, I think, and I can’t move my wrist up and down.” 

Charlie chuckles. “Lemme see what I can do about that.” The pale glow of her skin illuminates the inner bowels of Michael’s arm, allowing her to see deeper into the contraption. “So, what have you been up to?”

“The usual, you know. Searching for Father.”

“Any progress?” 

“This is the last restaurant we’ve searched. He  _ has _ to be here.” 

A knock resounds through the near-silent house. Charlie, busy fiddling with the interlocking robotic pieces in Michael’s arm, jumps at the noise. No one’s visited the house since the Aftons lived in it, over 10 years ago. Michael stands, pulling the sleeve back over his arm. He grits his teeth. If it’s another one of those stupid teenagers, trying to get a photo of (or even prank!) the infamous “Zombie-Man of Hurricane, Utah,” Michael may blow his top. 

“I can check who it is.” Charlie walks beside him, footsteps silent even against the hardwood floor. “Scare them off if it’s another one of those kids.”

As he adjusts his gloves, Michael gives a sharp nod of agreement. A tingling sensation washes over her as Charlie phases through the front door.

“Oh, it’s a package!” She sticks her head back through the door to call to her companion. 

Michael pulls open the door and examines the package thoughtfully. No label. Whoever sent this package hand-delivered it, which… Michael can’t tell whether to be worried or intrigued. Before Charlie can ask, Michael reaches into the still-open wound on his arm, yanks out a sharp piece of metal, and cuts open the box. He doesn’t need to see Charlie’s face to feel the exasperation radiating off of her in waves. Inside the box, Michael finds an old cassette tape. 

Charlie tugs the cassette out of his hands. Enchanted, she pushes the “play” button. Underneath the static, a familiar voice can be heard. 

_ “Michael. If you’re hearing this, it means that something’s happened. It means that I finally found out who killed Lottie, Elizabeth, and all those others.” _

“Mike, it’s…” Charlie whispers, almost inaudible underneath her silent tears. 

“My God _.  _ I didn’t know he was still alive.”

_ “This may be hard to hear, but… I’m almost one-hundred percent certain that it was—it was your father.” _

Michael chuckles, a cold, ironic laugh. 

_ “But that wasn’t why I sent you this. No, I need to ask something of you. A favor. I need you to come to the original Fazbear’s, the one closest to your childhood home, as soon as you can.”  _

His laughter stops abruptly. Henry wants to meet with him? They hadn’t spoken in a long time. 

_ “And… there’s one more thing. I haven’t been able to find Charlotte. All of the spirits who I’ve spoken with say that she left with a man fitting your description. If you know where she is… please, help me find her.” _

Charlie’s eyes widen, tears flowing faster than before. “Dad’s—” Her voice catches in her constricted throat. 

_ “Thank you, Michael. I hope you make the right decision. End tape.” _

“He’s looking for you?” Finishing her sentence, Michael pulls Charlie into a comforting embrace. “Of course he is. He’d be insane not to.”

“Thanks,” The spirit’s voice is still tight with tears. She fidgets with a small mechanical part, removed from Michael’s arm earlier that morning. “Are we gonna meet him?”

Michael stands, metal joints creaking under the weight. “Of course.”

“Now?” Her soft glow brightens as relief, joy, excitement, and many other emotions wash over her. 

“He did say ‘as soon as we can,’ didn’t he?” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter is a bit longer than we're used to, I know. Don't really have much to say, so I'll just let this chapter speak for itself, I suppose. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy Chapter 2 of An Eye For An Eye!

Dark plumes of smoke emerged from the hood and tailpipe of Michael’s rusty old car. The gas-guzzler is nearly as old as Michael himself and had barely made it to the restaurant. Charlie is convinced that the car won’t make it through the year, and assurances from Michael have not changed that opinion. 

For a moment, Charlie’s heart stops as she looks up at the building. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria had been her home away from home while she was alive, but after her death, it became her prison (at least until Mike came and saved her). But when Charlie left, she had to leave her best friends behind, too. The other victims. Her dad had mentioned on the tape that he had spoken to some of the spirits residing there, so maybe everyone was still there! But… Were they angry at her? Did they—

“Lee. Let’s go.” Michael pulls Charlie toward the door, snapping her out of her downward spiral. Something about the determination in Michael’s glance tells Charlie that this was intentional. Subconsciously, Michael squares his shoulders before knocking on the door. It opens immediately as if someone was waiting behind it for them to arrive. Charlie and Michael could barely recognize the man behind the door. With a scraggly, unkempt beard, a face aged beyond its’ years by loss and fear, and eyes that had stared death in the face and lived to tell the tale, Henry looked like a different man; though Michael and Charlie had changed too, in more ways than Henry had. 

His voice, too, had aged, but not beyond recognition. “Michael?” 

“Mr. Miller.” Michael gave Henry his best imitation of a smile. “May we enter?”

“Sure.” Swallowing his questions, Henry pulls the door open wider, looking Michael up and down again and again.

Still wrapped around Michael’s arm, Charlie finally regains her voice. “Dad? Can you hear me?” She flickers, tears about to start budding in her eyes.

Henry stops dead in his tracks when he hears her faint whisper. He can’t see her yet, but he feels Charlie’s warmth as she wraps her arms around him.

“I never thought I’d see you again.” Charlie’s voice, exhausted from the stress of the day’s emotional blows, quivers almost to the point of incomprehensibility. Her father can’t seem to find words to describe his overflowing emotions.

“Is that her?” 

“It is! It’s Charlie!”

At the same time, Michael and Charlie spot four spirits leaning over the corner, curious as to what’s happening. After only a few seconds, Charlie, composed as always, sprinting towards the children with her arms open.

“Guys!” She says, pulling the children into her arms, “I missed you all so, so much!” 

“We missed you too.” From Charlie’s arms, Suzy’s voice rings clear as a bell. 

Charlie does a double take and somehow smiles even wider than she was before. “You learned how to leave your bodies, just like I taught you! I’m so proud.”

“It still makes me really sleepy, though. Don’t like that.” Fritz pouts playfully, making Charlie giggle.

They continue to chatter, slowly making up for the five-odd years that they had been separated. Near the door, Michael and Henry stand awkwardly, watching.

“So, Michael, if it’s not too personal—” 

“What happened to me?” Michael cracks an irony-filled grin. “You recall Circus Baby’s Pizza World, correct?” 

A pit forms in Henry’s stomach. He remembers those chrome robots; they had filled him with dread even back then. All those monstrous extras: “deter and misdirect,” “parental tracking,” “voice mimic?” How had he not seen what William was doing?

The guilt-ridden look on Henry’s face showed Michael that he did indeed remember. “After it shut down, my father kept the animatronics. He put them in a bunker underneath our old house. I went down there to look for Elizabeth. Instead, well…” As Michael gestures to himself, the false charm in his smile fades, leaving only a cold, angry grimace. “...I lost my soul.” His voice sends a chill down Henry’s spine.

Henry sighs and stares down at his feet. “I’m sorry, Michael.” 

“Don’t be.” The bottom hem of Michael’s trench coat trails behind him like a cape as he walks off, ending the conversation. He crouches next to Charlie and the rest of the children, and his smile reappears. 

“Hey, Mike! You remember everyone, right?” The four children, curled up close to Charlie, brighten when they see Michael. “This is Gabe, Jeremy, Suzy, and Fritz.” Charlie beams up at him.

“Hello, everyone. Do you know why Henry called us here?” Michael says, sitting cross-legged to Charlie’s left. 

As if on cue, Henry approaches the group. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about. I brought you all here today because… I want to free you all. You children have been stuck here for far too long, and it’s time you moved onto the afterlife.”

Michael swallows a sharp retort. It would be wise to wait until later to tell Henry that Michael  _ couldn’t _ be freed. You needed a soul for that. He glances over and sees that Charlie’s shifting in her seat and they meet worried glances.

“Gabriel, Jeremy, Suzanne, Frederich, you’re all still bound to the animatronics, right?” Unaware, Henry continues. The children all nod, and Michael turns to look at the four six-foot robots standing powered-off on the stage.  _ Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy. _ Ever since one of his friends had worked the night shift at the restaurant and told Michael spine-chilling stories of the animatronics moving around the restaurant seemingly at random (a story that Michael now knew was completely true), he had always taken to counting them, just to make sure that they were all still there.

Henry stands up and walks towards the stage. “I’m pretty sure that dismantling them would unbind you. Then, hopefully, you could move on to the afterlife.”

Suddenly, a thought seizes Michael, and before he can stop himself, he stands too. “I want to get revenge on my father. He deserves to pay for his crimes,” he blurts out.

“He will,” Henry looks slightly worried at the suggestion, but replies nonetheless, “I’m going to get evidence and turn him in to the police.”

“Not good enough, Miller. He should pay with his life. We have to stop him now, before he hurts us, before he hurts you.” His glare is unwavering, strong. Michael isn’t backing down.

Charlie’s voice, quiet but determined, reaches his ears. “Mike.”

He still continues, “It couldn’t possibly be that hard. All we have to do is find him, and I have a few leads.” The children watch him, agreement dawning in their eyes.

“ _ Michael. _ ” Charlie pulls on Michael’s arm, trying to drag him back to his seat, but he doesn’t budge.

Henry says, “I-I don’t really think it’s necessary to that level, Michael.”

“Oh, but I think it—” Michael stops abruptly, suddenly aware of how he was speaking to the man who had practically raised him after Mom passed, who housed and fed him even after Charlie died. With a ragged breath, Michael sits back down, clenching his fists so tight that he could feel the wires in his fingers digging into his palms. Charlie flashes him a grateful smile, and he returns with an anxious one.

“It’s almost midnight, the night guard will be here soon.” Smiling nervously, Henry helps Michael to his feet. “You two should go.”

Michael sighs, “Thank you, Henry.” 

With a tinge of regret in her eyes, Charlie waves goodbye to the children as they re-enter their respective animatronics. Together, Michael and Charlie stand outside the restaurant, it's neon sign still shedding a little light, a dim reminder of the building’s age.

Michael murmurs, “I’m so sorry about how I acted before, Lee. It was stupid, I just got carried away.” 

“I know, Mike. It’s okay.” Charlie says, a twinge of happiness sounding in her at his admission. “Just please don’t talk like that in front of my dad again, okay? You saw how upset that made him.”

Raising his right hand, Michael smiles and says, “Never again.”

They both laugh for a moment and walk a few steps in silence.

“Speaking of him, is it okay if I hang back for a little bit?” Jabbing a thumb towards the double doors of Fazbear’s, Michael says, “I’d like to apologize.”

“Sure! I’ll see you at home.” Charlie’s smile is almost as bright as the glow of her skin as she walks silently off into the night. 

As soon as she’s out of sight, Michael turns back to the restaurant. Henry still hasn’t left yet, and he’s nowhere to be found.  _ Where else could he have gone? _

“Dave? Can I talk to you for a minute?” 

Michael could hear Henry’s voice, but couldn’t see him. Henry and whoever the hell “Dave” was must be in the storage room. 

“Sure thing, boss.” 

Stopping dead in his tracks, Michael’s skin crawls. He recognized that voice, though it was masked with a fake Brooklyn accent. 

“What’s up?” ‘Dave’ continues. 

The lightheartedness begins to drain out of Henry’s voice. “Drop the act, William. I know that it’s you.”

William’s cold chuckle makes Michael’s hands shake. “You were always smart.” Michael can feel the fake cheer dripping from William from his hiding spot in the dining area.

“I know you did it. That you’re the Fazbear Killer.” Henry says.

“Really?” William has dropped all of his warm pretenses, revealing ice-cold anger underneath. “And how exactly did you come to that conclusion?”

“I found the old tapes.”

“How? I deleted all of the camera footage.” 

“Not all of it. You’ve grown sloppy, old friend.” 

Michael tenses, ready to bolt if either of them got violent. 

“ _ You little _ — Fine. What the hell do you want?” 

“I want you to turn yourself in.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re human, William. I know there’s still good in you, that a tiny, minute sliver of you is still the same person who started the Fazbear franchise with me, who married Isabel—”

“Don’t you  _ dare _ use her to try and guilt me.”

“William, please. As a friend, I beg of you. End this madness. It’s what she would’ve wanted.”

“Henry… I’m afraid that just isn’t going to happen.” A metal-on-metal sound echoes through the restaurant, followed by an agony-filled scream. 

Yanking open the door so fast he almost rips it off the hinges, Michael bursts into the storage room to see Henry kneeling on the floor, a butcher’s knife lodged in his wrist, and tears pouring down his face. William stands in front of him, a crazed look in his eyes that is replaced with fear the moment he lays eyes on the rotting monstrosity that he used to call a son.

“Get away from him,” says Michael, in such a low timbre that it comes out as more of a robotic growl than actual words.

William, in near-hysterics, grabs Henry by the back of his shirt and holds him in front of himself like a meat shield, pulls the knife out of his old friend’s wrist, and hold it across Henry’s throat. “S-stay back! Come any closer and I’ll—”

He’s going to enjoy this. “I told you,  _ get away _ .” With superhuman strength, especially considering his figure, Michael grabs his father by the throat and tosses him across the room as if he weighed little more than a pillow. Michael turns to finish William off, but then he sees Henry out of the corner of his eye. 

Henry, the father of his best and only friend, with blood pouring out of his gaping wound and pooling around him, was paler than bone. He needed medical attention, fast. But, at the same time, Michael was alone with William. Michael could finish that wretch off the way he deserved to go.  _ Slowly and painfully.  _

Michael takes one last glance at Henry, more of an apology than anything, when he’s reminded of something that makes his stomach twang. Charlie. She, unlike Michael, fiercely adores her father, and she would be devastated if he died. Especially once she learned that Michael could’ve saved him, but simply chose not to.

Reluctantly, he turns back to Henry. With a final glare of warning at William, who took the message to heart, sprinting out as fast as his legs could carry the moment Michael took his eyes off of him, Michael pulls Henry into his arms, putting his injured wrist in his lap. 

“Henry? Can you speak?” Michael examines the older man with worry. Henry sputters out a few garbled vowel sounds in response, but nothing comprehensible. 

He racks his brain, trying to think of something,  _ anything  _ he could do to stop Henry’s blood loss. The idea to call Charlie briefly flashes through Michael’s mind, but he quickly comes to the conclusion that little good could come from that. After all, what could she do to help? Instead, Michael walks as quickly as he can into the night guard’s office. When he sees an abandoned jacket on the desk chair, an idea inspired by one of the many action movies he’d seen as a kid. Michael grabs the jacket and ties the sleeves tightly around Henry’s arm, just underneath the elbow. Maybe a little too tightly, Michael couldn’t be sure, but he left it. 

Now that Henry had mostly stopped bleeding, Michael reached for the phone with a blood-slicked hand and dialed 911. The voice of a middle-aged woman exhausted from years of late nights and early mornings crackles over the phone, “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” 

“My fr—my boss, Henry Miller, was attacked. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Michael desperately tries to insert emotion into his usually monotone and robotic voice, racking his brain for memories of what it was like to have a full range of emotion, but coming up with nothing. He just hoped that he didn’t sound too insane to the operator. 

A note of concern enters her tone. “Where are you, and who attacked Mr. Miller?” 

“We’re at the Hurricane branch of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzaria, on Monkton road.” Shifting Henry in his arms, Michael checks on the wound. Something’s wrong with it, but he can’t tell what. Not that Michael has much medical experience. He hasn’t had to deal with so much as a papercut in quite a long time. “And… it was one of his employees, goes by the alias Dave Miller. His real name is William Afton.”

A stifled gasp echoes across the line. Apparently, his father was more infamous than Michael knew. “Stay on the line, sir. What did you say your name was?”

“Joseph Stein.” Michael reads off of the name tag on the jacket tied around Henry’s arm.

“Okay, Mr. Stein. We’re sending an ambulance over right away.” ****


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the story continues, Michael and Henry continue to rub up against each other. Will they be able to overcome their differences and begin to like each other? Only time will tell.

“Mr. Miller? Can you hear me?” The lead surgeon, a bright and cheerful man who went by the name Dr. Chaz, stands at the foot of Henry’s hospital bed. 

Michael lingers off to the side, near the bathroom door, still holding the hospital phone. “I’ll talk to you later, Lee. He’s waking up. See you in a little while.” He puts the phone back in its holder, after listening to excited chatter from Charlie.

“Hi,” a pained chuckle comes from the hospital bed, “who’re you?”

“Dr. Tyler Chaz. It’s a pleasure to finally speak with you.”

“Yeah, I guess—” Henry stares in horror at his right arm, the events of the night before finally sinking in. His hand had been amputated just above his elbow joint, where Michael had tied the tourniquet. Looking at Michael with a mixture of horror and concern on his face, Henry swallows the rest of his sentence. 

Dr. Chaz chuckles nervously, trying to lessen the tension. “Well, Mr. Miller, as you can see, we had to amputate part of your right arm. I’m very sorry.”

“I-wh-how bad—?” Henry can barely manage to string two words together.

“How bad was the wound? I’m not going to lie, Mr. Miller, but you’re lucky to be alive. Yo—" A loud, repeating buzzing noise cuts Dr. Chaz off. He checks his belt and pulls a pager off of it. After glancing at it for a moment, he looks up at Henry and smiles again. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I must be going. Another patient needs me.”

“Thank…” When Henry looks back up at Dr. Chaz, the surgeon has already left the room. 

From the bathroom, Michael emerges slowly. “Is he still here?” 

Henry shakes his head. 

“Oh, thank god. I got more than enough weird looks on the ambulance and from the nurses. I’m never leaving home again.”

“Michael!” Henry says, glad to see a familiar face. “So, you brought me here?”

Leaning on the wall, Michael tugs on the sleeve of his trench coat, an anxious pit growing in his stomach. Was he  _ not _ supposed to bring Henry in? “Yeah. You were losing a lot of blood and I panicked.”

“Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. Truthfully, I owe you my life.”

“No, no, I was just returning the favor.”

Henry chuckles. Michael had always been a humble kid. “How’d you find me, anyway?”

“I came back to speak to you, but by the time I said good-bye to Charlie, you were already talking to William.”

“Wait, you threw him across the room, didn’t you? I’m not sure if that was real.”

“It was real. I had to get him away from you somehow.” 

“Is he…?” 

“He’s fine,” Michael says, a little too forcefully. 

Trying to lessen the sudden tension in the room, Henry asks, “What were you going to say to me last night?”

“I wanted to apologize. I wasn’t thinking straight yesterday. I completely flew off the handle, and I shouldn’t have, especially in front of the children.” 

“I knew you didn’t mean it. Something was off about the way you were talking. It just didn’t sound like you, you know?” 

Michael hadn’t sounded like himself for quite a while. 

“And, Michael? Don’t kill William.”

With a glare that could level a mountain, Michael grits his teeth and stays silent. 

“I know you hate him; I do too. But I feel like murdering him in cold blood is a bit overkill.”

Michael raises his head, his nostrils flaring, but he keeps his temper under control.

“Do you want to order some takeout?” Henry says brightly, trying to lighten the mood, “I’m a little hungry.”

“I don’t eat,” Michael frowns.

Smiling shakily, Henry pulls himself up from the hospital bed with his good arm. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. Hospitals make me nervous.” 

“Sure.”

* * *

  
  


“Dad! Oh my goodness, Dad!” Stumbling out of the front seat of his trusty old Oldsmobile 442, Michael is barely out of the car before he’s brushed passed by Charlie, her brown bob flying behind her. She practically tackles Henry as he emerges from the passenger’s seat. 

Henry holds her tightly, tighter than he ever had before. “I’m so glad to see you again, Lottie. You stayed here last night?” 

“When Mike didn’t come back, I got worried and came back to look for him. He called me from the hospital a few minutes later.”

Gabriel and Jeremy, curious as to what all the ruckus was about, emerge from the building. Suzy and Fritz are right on their heels.

“What happened?” Gabriel, appointing himself de-facto leader during Charlie’s very brief absence, asks.

After glancing back at Michael and Henry, confirming that she was allowed to tell, Charlie crouches down to Gabriel’s height. “Henry was hurt yesterday by…” She swallows. The name refused to leave her throat. “...by Mr. Afton.” Charlie watches Gabriel as his stomach drops, she had reacted the same way the night before.

“Shouldn’t we go after him, then?” Gabriel spits, fire beginning to light in his eyes. 

Still leaning on the car, Michael’s stomach turns, and he once again feels the bite and dull shock of his wire-clad fingertips pressing up against his palm.  _ Control yourself. _

“We can’t,” Henry inches towards the front door to the restaurant, “he’s way too dangerous. The smartest thing to do would just be to be patient and let the police do their jobs.”

“What? But that’s not—”

Michael interjects and takes Gabriel by the hand. “You four, let’s go inside.” Fritz, Jeremy, and Suzy trail behind them, and Michael can still hear Charlie and Henry talking.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Could I make you a prosthetic arm? I want to build something for once, instead of just doing maintenance.”

“Of course! I saw the work you did on the robots. There are so many things I want to teach you.” 

Charlie and Henry pass by Michael, and Charlie pauses. “I’m gonna go do mechanic stuff with my dad. I’ll see you later.”

“Have fun!” says Michael, smiling at Charlie as she and Henry disappear into the back room and shut the door behind them. Michael turns towards the children, who had begun chatting quietly amongst themselves. “Everyone, I have something to ask of you.”

“What is it?” Suzy looks at him skeptically. 

“I want to help you take down William.”

Eyes widening, Fritz says, “But, didn’t Mr. Miller say—”

“Henry’s alive, we’re not. William won’t be able to lay a finger on you.”

“How do you know?” Jeremy murmurs, resistance fading fast, “You’re not a ghost.”

“Yes, but I’ve lived with one since ‘88. I know better than most. Charlie can’t interact with objects and people unless she wants to, and I’d assume that the same applies to you.” 

“Why can’t you just do it?” With her hands on her hips, Suzy chirps up at Michael. 

“I might be strong, but I’m not invincible. William can still hurt me, but he can’t touch you, no matter how hard he tries.” With a sinister smile, Michael gives Suzy a small wink.

Fritz fiddles with a party hat on one of the tables. “How are we supposed to get him if we can’t touch him?”

“Simple. His suit. The yellow Bonnie suit that William wears is known as a springlock suit, because it doubles as a robot and a wearable suit. When it’s in suit mode, small springs push the robot parts aside, so that the performer can fit into the suit. But, these springs are  _ very _ fragile, and can snap shut when too much force is put on them. A force like, for example, trying to flee from something.”

“We’ll help.” Gabriel steps forward, a passion in his stance that makes Michael think of a younger version of himself. “What do you need us to do?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WHATS UP SLUTS IT'S BEEN A MONTH AND I'M BACK!! HERE'S CHAPTER FOUR

The warm glow of the streetlight illuminates Michael, casting dark shadows that make him look even less human. If there was anyone else out this late at night, he would surely give them nightmares. Michael’s footsteps echo through the empty streets. He stops in front of Fazbears and fumbles around in his pocket for the key. The metal ring is cold in his grip. 

Michael says, “Are you ready?” as he pulls open the door to face the four tall animatronics staring down at him. Their eyes are dim, flickering candles checking again and again to make sure that Michael is really there, that he’s really going to give them what they want. 

“Yes,” Freddy steps aside and ushers Michael into the dining area, where a toolbox is waiting for him. “Will it hurt?”

“Not at all.” Michael lies. He has no clue how closely connected the children’s souls and their respective robots are, and can only hope that his lie isn’t exposed the moment he puts a wrench to one of the animatronics. Sitting in the booth seat closest to the door, Michael opens the rusty toolbox and takes a wrench out from the bottom drawer. 

Foxy sits down next to him and glances at the clock on the wall. “Where’s the night guard? It’s after midnight.”

Removing Foxy’s arm from the rest of the animatronic, Michael chuckles, “Right here. Fritz Smith, at your service.” He winks, much to the amusement of everyone in the room. 

“You used my name!” Foxy’s smile widens, reminiscent of the gap-toothed smile that Fritz always wore.

The beginnings of a grin bud on Michael’s face. “It is quite a good name.” Michael detaches Foxy’s head, and Fritz, pale skin radiating light, floats out.

“Look at me!  _ Look! _ I’m—” Fritz cuts himself off when Michael places a finger of warning over his lips, and mouths,  _ he’ll hear you. _ To vent his excitement, Fritz instead bounces around the room.

Michael quickly removes Chica and Bonnie’s heads, releasing Suzy and Jeremy from their robotic caskets. Gleefully, they spin in circles and figure-eights above the table. Freddy sits down in front of him, and Michael tries to remove his head, but one of the bolts in his neck is jammed. Michael twists the bolt with all of his strength, nearly snapping the wrench, but still no dice. 

The double doors of the Fazbear restaurant fly open, smacking the walls inside with a metallic clang. “Michael? What are you doing?” Charlie whispers, eyes wide with fear and horror that Michael cannot place. 

“I’m—” Before Michael can finish, Fritz squeals.

“Charlie, look!” Fritz floats over behind Charlie, gesturing at himself wildly. “I look like me!”

Her gaze brightens considerably. “You look amazing, Fritz.” Then, Charlie turns to Michael, her usual cheerful smile back on her face, and whispers, “You’re… helping them?”

“We’re helping  _ him _ . We’re going to give William what he deserves.” Freddy corrects.

Charlie swallows, hard, and her blood runs cold again. “Gabriel, can you— can you go wait with the others for a minute?”

“Michael has to remove my head first.” 

With quick, jerky movements, Charlie snatches the wrench from Michael’s hands, detaches a hinge from the other side of Freddy’s neck, and yanks out the jammed bolt. Gabriel, finally free, joins his fellow spirits in the opposite corner, where they chatter quietly.

_ “What are you doing?”  _ Charlie hisses, grabbing Michael by the wrist. 

“I need your help, Lee.” 

Her voice hardens. “Answer the question.”

“They’re going to help me take care of William.”

“Mike, you can’t do this. Especially not with the kids.”

“Why not? He more than deserves it.”

“They’re children. You can’t make them kill someone.”

“He won’t die.”

Charlie falls silent.

“And I mean, look at what he did to your dad. Henry just wanted to help him. Imagine what he’ll do to us.”

After stuttering a few words, Charlie turns away from Michael, turning this plan over and over in her head.

“Besides,” Taking slight advantage of his friend’s turmoil, Michael puts an arm around Charlie and continues, “I’ll be right in the doorway of the storage room the entire time. Nothing will happen to you or the children.”

Ignoring the increasingly insistent voice in her head telling her that  _ no, this was an awful idea, _ Charlie murmurs, “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you, Lee. I promise that you won’t regret this.” Michael pulls her to her feet and leads Charlie down the hallway, where her fellow phantoms are lurking. “Now, everyone, you’re not aiming to kill him. Just terrify him as much as you can.” His voice falls to a whisper, and Michael looks increasingly uncomfortable the closer he gets to the door.

“You guys don’t need to worry. I’ll do the talking.” Charlie naturally takes the lead role and helps to lower the nervous energy crowding the hallway. A litany of skittish thoughts too fast to decipher run through her head, and she glances back at Michael, but his stony face does little to calm her nerves. 

Charlie opens the door slowly, but still fast enough that it creaks. From inside the storage room, William jumps at the noise, wide eyes darting around the room, trying to locate the source of sound in an otherwise silent room. He moves quickly to shut the door, revealing the yellow springlock suit that he has been tinkering with. Charlie’s voice catches in her throat as she stares down her killer for the first time in fifteen years. She can tell that the rest of the spirits share in her terror. Even Michael, lingering at the end of the hallway in case William decides to bolt, feels a slight twinge of nerves as his only remaining friends disappear from sight.

With shaking hands placed carefully behind her back as to not reveal her fear, Charlie approaches William from behind. “ _ Afton _ ,” she says, voice strengthened with resolve. 

William practically leaps out of his skin. He turns on his heel to stare down at his victims, and Charlie sees the war between terror and anger playing out in his eyes. “You—how are you here?”

“You need to atone for your crimes.” Desperately grasping at straws, Charlie tries to think of what Michael would say to him. “Pay for all of the horrible misdeeds you’ve done.”

William takes a few steps back. “No! Not yet! I’m so close! I just need more—”

“You’re out of time.”

“You don’t understand!” His voice rises to a feverish pitch. “I’m going to be with her! I  _ have _ to be with her!”

Charlie swallows hard. She’s becoming wrapped up in the act. “ _ No.  _ You’re going to stay here, alone and outnumbered. Just like you deserve. Just like you left  _ us _ .” With a final step, the spirits have him pinned against the wall. William turns and bolts across the room. Not towards the door, like Charlie was expecting, but towards a yellow springlock suit laying limply in the corner. He has it on in less than a minute. 

The children take a few stumbling steps back. That was no longer just a monstrous man standing in front of them, it was the monster that had taken their lives, that had haunted every corner of the waking nightmare they had lived in for the past ten years. Sensing the sheer terror radiating from his best friend, Michael plants himself in the doorway. He doesn’t doubt that Charlie has everything under control, but he doesn’t trust William to not do something completely insane.

Now in his armor, William’s mask of fear turns to a hideous snarl. His gaze turns to Michael, and his snarl deepens. “ _ I _ won’t be the one dying here tonight.” 

Charlie begins to growl, “Stay away from—”

A loud  _ snap, _ followed by a gurgling, guttural scream cuts her off. In front of her, William crumples like a rag doll, his wretched screams slightly muffled by the mask of the suit. 

Still in the doorway, Michael stands silently, his stony expression twisting into a grin. Not a genuine smile (a rare yet comforting sight from him), but something more sinister. Something that made a piece of himself buried under miles and miles of scar tissue twinge with regret.  _ Like father, like son. _ The monstrous smile shatters as soon as the thought crosses his mind, and Michael snaps back to reality. He blinks a few times, and the idea sinks back down out of sight once again.

William is kneeling in a pool of his own blood, his agony-filled screams echoing through the room. Charlie careens away from him in horror, accidentally hitting into Michael as she falls. He catches Charlie right as her hair brushes the floor, and realizes that she’s quivering from head to toe. 

“They’re gone… I don’t know where they went.” Following her gaze to the empty space where Gabriel, Jeremy, Suzy, and Fritz used to occupy, Michael realizes what Charlie’s murmuring about. 

Michael sighs, “They must’ve moved on.” They both stare at the floor for a minute, worry clouding their minds, but ragged breathing from the corner of the room helps Michael pull himself together. “Just go wait outside, Lee, alright? I’ll be out in a minute.” 

“No!” Charlie nearly screams, “I can’t leave you alone with…” 

A menacing chuckle rings out from the corner of the room. Michael pulls Charlie behind him even though William doesn’t move from his crumpled position. “I’m trapped in my own skin, slowly dying. Sound familiar, Michael?” His voice is grating and strained.

“Why did you cause all this? All this pain and suffering; what’s the point?” Charlie whispers, eyes still bloodshot with old tears.

William cocks his head to the right. “ _ I _ didn’t cause this mess. That was all your friend over there.”

“You’re insane.” Taking a step forward, Michael spits, “You can’t possibly think all this is my fault. Elizabeth, Mother, Charlie, Gabriel, Jeremy, Suzy, Fritz, even Henry and I, to some degree, our lives were decimated because of you.”

“You know what they say: like father, like son.” William’s grin is menacing now, with no trace of his usual hysteria.

“I’m nothing like you. You’re a delusional monster who kills for fun.” Michael stares a hole through William, blocking out the nagging knowledge that William was correct, and it was only a matter of time before Charlie realized that too.

“Well, the heroic justice-seeking vigilantes don’t usually send their moral compasses to murder the big bad in cold blood, do they?”

“You  _ son of a— _ ”

Suddenly, Michael feels a hand grab the back of his coat and drag him out of the room. Michael turns, ready to face down any ally that William may have brought with him, but instead, he finds Henry staring up at him.

Henry’s voice is quiet and cold. “What are you doing? Why did I hear—” When Henry’s eyes settle on the bloody, mangled mess he once called his friend, he freezes. “Oh—oh my lord.”

“Henry…” William whispers weakly. 

Henry doesn’t respond. 

“Please, help me.”

As he embraces a sobbing Charlie, Michael shoots Henry a look of warning. 

“You know Michael can’t be trusted. Look at what he did to me, and I’m his  _ father. _ ”

Michael desperately wants to snap at William, to hit him, to do something, but doing anything rash would prove William’s point.

“He doesn’t have a soul, Henry. He doesn’t actually care about you or Charlotte. You have to stop him  _ now _ , before he hurts her.”

_ That’s it.  _ Michael moves forward to stop William’s lies, but feeling the rise and fall of Charlie’s chest on his hip sharpens Michael’s thoughts.  _ He needs to be smart about this.  _

As Michael takes a deep breath, a spiteful smile settles on his face. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves.” 

Henry turns back to Michael, smiling gratefully at him. He moves to close the door to the storage room, locking William inside. 

“Henry, wait, please...” William’s shaking hand stretched towards the door suddenly goes limp, and his head droops. Shakily, Henry closes the door with a resounding bang and clicks the lock shut. 

Henry turns to Michael and Charlie. “What happened to everyone else?” 

“They…” Charlie says quickly, avoiding eye contact with both Michael and Henry, “They moved on, to the afterlife.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Charlie nods politely, a false smile plastered on her face. She pulls closer to Michael’s elbow, which she had snaked her arms around after Henry had shut the door. 

“I think we’re going to go home,” Michael says, eyes on Charlie. “get some rest.” 

“I’m going to call Fazbear Headquarters and report a springlock failure. They deal with those all the time.” Sighing, Henry toys with his new prosthetic hand. It’s not yet finished; the fingers twitched without intent, and the cold steel was exposed for all the world to see. 

“Goodnight, Henry. Will we be seeing you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah. I’ll see you.” Henry’s tone had a note of melancholy as he looks one last time at his daughter before turning and walking away toward the office. 

Michael leads Charlie towards the door. “Are you alright?” 

“I killed him, Mike.” Tears begin to drip down her face again. “I’m a murderer.” 

“Hey.” 

The edge in Michael’s voice makes Charlie look up. 

“Do you remember what happened to Luke?” Michael says. 

Luke. Michael’s little brother had been a quiet kid, and always looked up to Charlie as the big sister he never had. Charlie had died before Luke’s passing, so she didn’t know the details, but she knew that Michael blamed himself for it. That he played a large part in Luke’s death. “I remember.” 

“Does his death make me a killer?” 

“Of—of course not!”

“Then that means that you aren’t a killer either.” 

“I… guess.” Charlie leans her head on Michael’s shoulder and smiles up at him. The smile is almost genuine. “Thanks, Mike.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr for art:  
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/the-metal-reaper
> 
> please love my art


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